Short and long-term absence

Some health problems and disabilities result in relatively short periods of absence from work but others lead to longer absences and absence policies need to take account of these differences. The CBI says fresh initiatives are needed to tackle the high proportion of total costs generated by long-term absences, where mental health conditions top the list of causes.

Jonathan Emms, UK managing director at Pfizer (which sponsored the 2013 CBI Fit for purpose report) confirmed that the relatively few instances of longer-term absence make up nearly one third (30%) of all lost working time with conditions linked to anxiety, stress and depression the leading cause.

Evidence on the relative impact of short and long-term absence varies but CIPD says two-thirds of working time lost to absence is accounted for by short-term absences of up to seven days, while a fifth is attributed to long-term absence of four weeks or more. Over a quarter of absence in the public sector is due to long-term absences of four weeks or longer, twice as much as in the private sector, CIPD points out.

In the Local Government Workforce Survey (2012-13) long-term absence (over 20 days) accounted for 2.0% of days lost on average, 4.9 days per full-time equivalent (FTE) employee, whereas short-term absence accounted for 1.7%, 3.9 days per FTE employee.